I’ve been thinking about this a lot after watching Lamont vs Pitbull. To me, both of them are good boxers, and not just “good” in a casual way – I honestly think they’re operating at a very high level. I also feel like the standards fans use for calling someone “good” in boxing are extremely high. Take someone like Errol, for example. Just because he suffered a humiliating loss, that doesn’t erase everything he did before or what he represents for the sport. The same goes for so-called “limited” fighters like Pitbull. People say he’s not that technical, but he’s very effective, and whether people like it or not, there’s a lot of intelligence behind what he does. Boxing is a sport of styles. Some styles match up well with yours, others don’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean one guy is “bad” – it just means the matchup didn’t favor him. If we look coldly at the lightweight division, how many fighters are clearly better than Pitbull or Lamont? I’d say not more than 10–15, maybe even less. And if you’re at the level where you’re a title contender, ranked, and have shown you can perform at or near the highest level, I think that already makes you a “good” boxer. I don’t think “good” should be reserved only for legends like Duran, Floyd, etc. Any world champion in any division is, by definition, good. Boxing is one of the most competitive sports there is, and reaching that level already puts you in a very small group. I also feel boxing is a very nostalgic sport. Fans tend to overrate the past and underrate the present. Everything from before is treated as better, and you can’t really test that anymore, so it becomes untouchable. So my question is: From what level do you personally start calling a boxer “good”? Because for me, stripping away fanboy stuff, calling a world-level fighter “good” is not an exaggeration – it’s just being fair.
With a few exceptions(like bringing up crack opponents on a fighters record) every fighter mentioned on this website is beyond good. Most are great. "0 culture" has made people a little sensitive to nice looking records but everyone with a nice looking record is still a great boxer who dominated their local scene. Boxing has a culture where the fans are kinda trying to sniff out if an 0 is "real" and if it isn't they get labeled a "fraud". So that contributes. Back in the day there was this boardgame called "guess who" where you had a bunch of faces on these plastic pieces and you were trying to guess which face was "the guy". Boxing has kinda become like that and if someone clearly isn't "the guy" they get thrown to the side just like one of those plastic pieces. You bring up Spence. Another issue is if an undefeated champion or elite contender loses once we act like they died and their career is over. Who knows if thats why Spence went into hiding but you'd imagine in a different time losing 1 fight to someone like Crawford wouldn't be the end of the world. No matter how bad the loss was.
I was planning to basically say this. If somebody has a name for anyone to bother knowing, they're at least good, and they had to set themselves apart from their states and provinces on regional levels, and it wasn't easy, even in pretty low-boxing-training areas. On this site, people just can't wrap their heads around appreciating regional levels of ability being something TO appreciate. Where I'm from, something like, say, wrestling, the fans in that (not fake wrestling) are pretty good about things like that. In boxing, for people who don't follow amateurs much, it's like there's zero respect for that level of competition. And by the time they are being talked about here? Guys are gonna be getting pretty tough/skilled to get there.
I agree with you. Anyone at world level, and even below, could be a good fighter. There are SO many things that can get in the way of a boxer reaching greatness, with many of these reasons being out of their control… Also, the history bias is simply not true… You have many fans unironically saying things like “the sport has evolved”, and that great fighters of the past simply couldn’t compete today… Yeah, the ****ing DOGS who fought 15 rounds, and sometimes fought multiple times a month if you go back further, “couldnt compete” today.. I’d say the fighters today who nearly always rely on dramatic weight cuts 100% could not compete over 15 rounds at the frequency that the past greats did… How come you don’t hear this as often as the former? Its not uncommon for champions to fight 1-2x a year now.
If you're watching them on TV they're pretty damn good....infact there are better fighters who havn't made it to the limelight of TV yet but deserve it...or even a title shot! - Kabayel for example, a man who nearly became an activity fight for Fury which people went bonkers about calling it a farce because they don't see behind the scenes where guys like Kabayel and Bakole are basically sparring champions because they handle themselves so damn well. The thing with boxing especially HW, physically attributes can totally bypass a lot of skill defecits.
The term Good can be a little broad and subjective. A boxer may absolutely not be "good" fighting the elites of the division and gets blown out but is actually very "good" compared to the rest of the planet, including other boxers below a certain level. As to your question, I start calling a fighter "good" when they start beating contenders in their division. They may not be "elite" though. Now some guys look "good" beating up journeymen, undersized fighters, and faded old fighters, that doesn't mean they are "good" compared to the contenders of their division (though probably good compared to most of the planet).
